Union government should look at setting up National Institute of Medical Devices Education & Research (NIMDER) as an autonomous body under the aegis of Department of Pharmaceuticals. The objective should be a Centre of Excellence for advanced studies and research in medical devices to ensure easy accessibility of trained manpower. The creation of this Institute should be parallel to the recently announced medical device regulation and the Med-Tech Parks coming up in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, said Dr. BR Jagashetty, former National Adviser (Drugs Control) to MoHFW & CDSCO.
At the recently concluded India Pharma 2017 and India Medical Devices 2017 event held in Bengaluru, Union minister for chemicals and fertilisers called upon Karnataka to allocate land for the setting up of a Pharma & Med-Teck Park at the Electronics City, Bengaluru.
Going hand-in-hand with this, the government should look at industry ready manpower for the sector to access when they locate themselves in this Park. The biggest concern for the industry is trained and qualified manpower. Specifically Bengaluru, which is a science research hub and the information technology capital with a biotech cluster, it would be more appropriate to house the NIMDER here. This would be the first-of-its-kind in the county and most apt for the IT capital of country, he added.
NIMDER can be designed on similar lines that of the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER). The country is already home to 6 NIPERS and 4 more are on the anvil. Now with the increased interest by the government on medical devices to offset the 70% import dependency and 90 per cent on medical electronics dedicated manpower is a critical source to drive affordable products, Dr. Jagashetty noted.
A couple of years ago, Karnataka and specifically Bengaluru were shortlisted for a NIPER. But over the years nearly 70 pharmacy colleges across the state and the dedicated centers to mould manpower to industry needs like the Pharmacy Training Institute have chipped in expertise to make certain regular talent availability which is groomed and updated on every advancement, the industry warrants, he said.
NIMDER can provide training to candidates from education backgrounds like pharmacy, engineering, biotech, bioinformatics, specialisations in bio-med mechanical and electronics. There is also a pool of expertise from the Indian Institute of Science, IIM and Indian Institute of Information Technology. Further the expertise in bioinformatics cannot be ignored and the Karnataka’s Department of IT, BT and S&T already has a 15-year-old Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) which focuses not just on education and research but entrepreneurship in bioinformatics and biotechnology. In addition, it is also 'Centre of Excellence for Research and Training in Bioinformatics' of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology.
Now going by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Start-up India programme, the government should consider NIMDER to make certain readily available trained manpower for medical devices also, said Dr. Jagashetty.